China 2019 - Connecting with Digital ASEAN

hello good afternoon everyone thank you so much for joining us hope everyone's full up after lunch and ready to rock and roll for this session my name is Arjun Koppel I'm CNBC's China technology correspondent based in our Bureau in Guangzhou South China this session today is called connecting with digital RCN and I want to just set the scene here and of course a very diverse region different cultures different countries but a population of over 650 million people it's a huge opportunity for companies and for governments but how do you connect this huge number of people is there a need to have a coherent regulation and policy is it even possible to connect this many people and what's the roles of some of the new technologies that we've been speaking about here at West such as blockchain such as artificial intelligence these are some of the questions we're going to be asking today to this fantastic panel sitting right next to me over here so let me just kick off by introducing them very quickly I've got Jo Jo T center Gupta JJ as he's also known ahead of a pack for cognizant technology solutions next along the lines we have Sarah Shire the assistant governor of the National Bank of Cambodia next in line an eco professor of finance at the Singapore Management University and then Angeline Tam CEO of Uncas so let me just kick off this session and pay very close attention because I'm even get all a chance to ask a question towards not everyone but some people were to ask a question right at the end of this session but let me kick off with you JJ and this is one for all of you so get thinking what is one opportunity and one challenge you see that ASEAN is facing when it comes to the digital economy the biggest the biggest opportunity in front of all of us is connectivity and a seamless trade and that's also the biggest challenge that how do we make it happen we all know the opportunity we used to talk about data and digital as the new oil now we call it as a new heir the question is how do we make the air pollution free how do you make the air free for all and at the same time accessible um okay I just have to put a disclaimer for the rest of the second remaining of the session so I'm from a quasi government on the panels we have academics and private sector so when I say something it doesn't represent my government views and it happened to be good and lucky for them if not it's my mind so opportunities I think is the fact that we are lagging behind and there is no incumbent infrastructure that need to get rid of it like Cambodia we have moved from the landline to mobile that and I can speak for many others later on challenges will be human resources thank you good afternoon um this is a great panel first of all because if there's more women than guys opportunity youth if you look at the composition on this panel we actually have very youthful voices so I think that's a great opportunity so people talk about market size GDP I know the population but to me the population dividend in our favor the larger percentage now the challenge is the youth are demanding change the use are the ones asking for us young common identity and the ones that are actually looking at the laws and the regulations a little bit young at heart but they are not useful so I think that is one of the challenge hi everyone thank you so much for having me yeah so I think I definitely agree there's a lot of opportunity and challenges but for opportunities and ASEAN you know we are ten countries and there's actually a lot that we can learn it from each other from data sharing and knowledge sharing in terms of regulations what works in one place and what doesn't work and why and I think if government start talking to each other that would really help with what we're seeing on the ground because change is happening so fast you know the government's can't keep up with legislation on the internet how do you regulate things that you can't see you know what where did where the businesses start and businesses end and I so think that's a very big opportunity if they can start working together and that one political framework and I think the biggest challenge that we have for for the ASEAN is how do we how do we deal with how do we deal with this cross-border issues or even in-country issues so for us at uncas we're basically a right hailing app that that photo has focuses on motorcycles right so we have we have empowered thousands of drivers to make a very good living for themselves they've tripled their minimum wage on a daily basis and all they need to do is be able to drive a motorcycle responsibly right and with that if all these new entrepreneurs they never used to be part of the formal economy so all of them are part of the informal economy all right if you look at the SATA or sharpie right let's say you have a 10 year old baking cookies at home and she's selling it online if it's in the Philippines of it's outside how do you determine if that person needs to pay tax how do you go after a 10 year old girl for taxes right and in the past you know when everyone is an individual this is not an issue to the government but when you start putting people on digital platforms in a thousands in the millions then this becomes an economic powerhouse and something that the government needs to be able to deal with and I think that's a very big challenge I think gonna face great thanks for setting the scene to us and and clearly from from some of the answers there date is very important JJ you mentioned about data is air and how do we make sure that's clean air but of course there seems to be a movement towards siloed data perhaps not sharing data governments requiring data to be stored in the country not easy to be moved sorry I want to start with you because we had a conversation a few days back and and you mentioned to me that you think at the moment data flow is quite difficult in between countries in the ASEAN region explain to us firstly for a central bank what's the importance of data and secondly what are some of the difficulties at the moment yeah I mean we've been talking a lot about FinTech and Prime Minister Modi once said that if you now's a day if you want to get investment into your project you have to tell you are investing on a platform then they pour money in if you want them to add veg capital to add more investment onto you tell them that you invest in a FinTech space and if you want them to empty their pocket for you tell them that you invest in blockchain and so fin type there's a lot of hype about fintechs about AI about artificial intelligence et cetera but all these are based on the availabilities of data and if you don't have data it will be very difficult from a banking sector perspective I mean I put on my hat as the chairwoman of a credit bureau Cambodia where we try to sort of connect with different credit reporting in the region and it is very difficult we are ready to get our data across the border for our migrant workers in Thailand or Malaysia etc because if they have a good credit history in Cambodia once they migrate to Malaysia Thailand they should be able to get access to financial services based on their credit history and at the moment we can't do it because of some data rules in some of these country where they can't do a reciprocal sort of arrangement with us and so this is in a way an obstacle for us to broaden our program access to finance and I'm doing for you data of course very key to your business you're a tech business as well what are some of the challenges you face around data at the moment I think the challenges we face around data is like there's so much data how do you know what's the data to be looking at what's the right data to be looking at and I think that the real reason the only answer to that is really to try an error so as a start-up you know there's no fixed ways of doing things so we always look at data reiterate you know high test a B test and and I think that's the exciting thing about being a Sarah we can fail with our tests and just keep trying to to optimize for presumably data from perhaps government sources as well could be quite important to what you do is that easily available for you in the Philippines so I think in terms of data I think the one that's lacking is the lack of data so for example we face a lot of regulatory issues with the government for our kind of service and a lot of times we've had to do the research ourselves so we had to find the data to show hey government there's this this this kind of service has been around for 40 years in this country you know X percent of it is happening on the ground here and it's unregulated it's not safe and we want to professionalize the service to make it safer for everyone so we kind of had to look for that data and present it to the government and I think that's something that's lacking throughout which is the lack of data rather than you know not even sharing information so so I think hopefully it's driven more by the private sector to to kind of take that initiative to share the right kinds of data of the government's who to show them what what's important and then it's what the government of validated this data makes sense and then base their policies off that JJ let me just pick up with you quickly you work with a lot of businesses as well were they fully understanding the role of data right now in in digitizing their business and secondly given the lack of a global framework around data flows are they getting frustrated and is it potentially holding back innovation I pick this question into two or three different segments but the first and foremost is that yes of course there is a there is an overflow of data today like everybody is generating lots of data and everybody is having the same challenge that what do I do with this data do I have enough data or do I have not enough data or do I have redundant data how do I keep this data stored this so there is an immense amount of effort which is going in in collecting the data first and then to figure out what do I do with it now of course like our businesses are primarily looking at how to and that's where the role of all these artificial intelligence automation and algorithmic programming and all these that we are talking about in implementation of how to make a meaningful sense out of this data is coming in now when it comes to regulations and and governance there are like there are we are seeing that there are a lot of country level regulations we have got GD P R we have got P DPS so there are a lot of country level or Continental regulations there are also regulations imposed by specific - Arthur it is like Monetary Authority of Singapore and and others so so there are different layers of regulation which are created now any regulation of course creates frustration any regulation of course creates certain ring-fencing to the freedom but this is also an opportunity for all of us to learn how to stay within those ring-fence try to make the most of it but at the same time give enough confidence to these regulatory authorities that ring-fencing can be relaxed and and more can be done with it because the algorithms and all these processes are getting stronger and and now with 5g coming in and as we see more advent of connected machines connected societies and societal evolution we will definitely see lot more of this challenge coming in and lot more of responsible behavior from all sides and yeah I wanted to get your perspective on a similar question I just asked our state JJ are the businesses understanding the role of data and is there a sense of frustration or even is it holding back innovation the fact that these free flow of data is just not happening at the moment so okay so I have to put on different heads so I'm on the part of goth ket and Gotha is the government technology office of Singapore and the movement is - it's making Singapore a smart nation so I want to say data is critical and you asked a good question data to be shared even within government agencies government agencies don't share data with each other so we are actually having conversations like this the value of data is not useful if it's not share isn't it amazing and you know data share doesn't mean that it's data lost is actually co-creation of the purpose of data so JJ asked and answered correctly what is the purpose of data so that's the first piece but given that it's not your data is data from your citizens from your customers from your partners I think the second P which is critical is privacy how do I know that the data which I've you've collected without even asking from me for some cases but because I use a particular services you've got my data how do I know that this data you respect and there's a privacy class and you know if you do share it it's aggregator and it's not the individual and I think the third P which is very critical in order to get the benefits of the new digitalization is partnerships I don't think we could go far in this journey as a digital asean if we are not open to partnerships in the ecosystem in which we operate so if you are working in the wholesale trade ecosystem then your partnerships are the big boys that do commodities trading and the small SMEs that supply on the different parts to you the big and the small it's almost like you have to get the whole ecosystem aligned to the standards the rules the governance the right design for sharing data so this conversation is critical as I mentioned at the platform speaking conversation yesterday I am delighted to share that three days ago in Singapore my senior minister juniel has just launched the trusted data sharing framework and if you notice the whole framework there is trusted data sharing so it means within government government to business and hopefully business to business outside the country and eventually g2g within the whole of ASEAN so there are many steps to go but maybe we could lead by example within the government itself how are we able to share trusted data but isn't that also part the problem because you've got a singapore-based piece of regulation JJ mentioned country by country you've got GDP are happening in Europe you've got US lawmakers and what we're gonna do California talking about its own rules so this is huge fragmentation around rules around data whether that be data frozen whether it be data privacy as well over the weekend at the G 20 you saw Prime Minister BAE of Japan put forward this Osaka framework this this framework for a free flow of data which they emphasize with trust so in that context I mean how would how do you see global data rules moving forward and actually is there even a possibility of getting to a point where we could see a global framework for data flows I don't think the entrepreneurs in this room or people like Angeline think about a global standard when they built your enterprise so to them they are delivering value and you are not going to wait for that global standard so I think we might have a bigger chance if we do by economic blocks and I mentioned that earlier so it's not that we don't respect the European EU gbt and we don't respect what is decided at g20 I think in in Asia in Southeast Asia and now finally we have an ASEAN community we are moving towards 2025 as a combined AEC as an economic community there is a chance if we start talking to each other so I would like to say at least on this panel we have a voice from emerging ASEAN from Cambodia we have a slightly older a member of ASEAN and we have a big Philippine site although angeline is Singaporean alright but working in means so to me and of course cognition so maybe the private sector can share with us what are some of the ways in which you have been able to connect ASEAN despite all the frustrations of coming up with a single standard sorry I want to pick up with you and just on some of the points that Inez made would you be in favor more of an ASEAN wide data regulation rather than the global rules which is what some countries are talking about at the moment well first we need something locally that is strong enough to to make it happen at least among government agencies which doesn't always happen and then a second we can look within the region I think as an it's very ambitious with its vision with AEC etc free flow of everything a free flow of trade free flow of goods for your flow of financial of capital and and so I I don't know about data it could be free of flow of data but to be able to be fully connected I think a regional harmonizing framework on data would be something that is very critical and I mean for me from your perspective from a business perspective what would you like to see what would be beneficial for what you do or data for data for data regulation so I think I think data is very important I just want to see from my point of view I want to make sure that we share the right data with each other on a private side and at a public site but as well we we don't also have regulate too heavily because sometimes when you you do everything by the book let's say the regulations come out like this thick it's very difficult for business on the ground small especially the smaller ones to be compliant with like you know regulations that are that make a lot of sense in a big picture but when you actually have to practice it down on on the ground level it's it's almost impossible so that that will really hinder businesses did you give us the view of enterprise because a lot of businesses we speak to on CNBC say oh you know it's it's difficult cuz we got to comply with GDP are in Europe and then you know the US are talking about separate rules it's to the point I was making at the start so would our businesses advocating some sort of global rules or would they just prefer some more clarity on whatever the regional or country wide bozer I mean I grossly agree with with the opinion of my fellow panelists because I think that a global uniform rule is more of an utopia at least in in the state where we are all standing today but but what view definitely see and and by virtue of my role I tend to get a view of the environment all the way from Middle East to Australia New Zealand the entire land mass which is which is a pretty complex and pretty diverse landmass and prior to that I had almost two decades of working in Europe so I've seen all the sides of how data protection came in the origin and how it is implemented and where it is going so so needless to say that there will be never an uniform Civil Code but we have to agree to a certain rule around classification of data and and there has to be like not every data is harmful not every data is bad not every data has to be stopped now how we classify this data and how we create treaties like and I will just take her an analogy not the best analogy probably for the moment but somewhat that came to my mind is if you see when globalization happened we fundamentally assumed there will be movement of people that was the fundamental assumption of globalization because trade was always happening movement of goods were always happening globalization also gave us a East movement of people but still people need visa to travel from one place to another but within that we also have treaties like the Schengen treaty or the apik treaty so so we have to create this classification as to how similarly data can be also treated and classified like that and so what can move what can cross the borders of the country because I come from the Swiss banking regime and we all know how Swiss banking data used to be so so there will be even before all these rules and all these themes came into play we knew that this is important this is business critical so I think that classification of data and creation of certain regulatory conditions but with some degree of flexibility which will allow us to handle this in a more liberal way I want to just switch track slightly to talk now about the role of big technology in the world it's something that has been discussed a lot here at the World Economic Forum and if we're talking about the digitization of vasya and it's very hard to ignore the potential role that large technology firms from both the US and China could play in that but there's also worry from some countries for example in the US and from some regions like Europe about the power and size of some of these large technology companies so I wanted to to get the panelists view on this rail kick off with you what kind of role do you see big tech playing in their digitization of RCN and do you see them as potential collaborators or do you see their power just growing too big they can play a very important role and I think we can always find common interests and collaborates I'll give you an example of that there's a project that I've just heard of from a fellow YTL on how Google tried to track and trace the outbreak of dengue fever now you would be able to track the places where this person has been and then rightly identified where the the dangling may have come from this is a powerful powerful tool to help countries like Cambodia which is now played by a dangly epidemic but in terms of managing the data privacy I mean how much would you allow a company big company like this with some sort of questionable track record on their data collections and and usage to track everything about you where you are and and things like that so we need a proper rules and regulations in place for that to happen but I believe we can make it happen with a lot of dialogue and and common understanding and I'm doing from your perspective one thing we have seen it is big tech continuing to push into new areas that weren't traditionally their core a while back Google is no longer just a search engine Facebook is no longer just a social network so as a start-up and what role I mean how do you view the big tech firms at the moment I think in an emerging market like the Philippines the big tech firms have actually played a very big role in and driving the economy in the digitalization process right so if you look at it five six years ago nobody was doing e-commerce in the Philippines right it was like why would I buy something online you know but because these companies have the technology the know-how and the money they've invested a lot on the infrastructure and to build this business and economy up and and I think that has also helped empower a lot of people so like what we're doing on the ground and as well it's also trained a lot of people to go out to do their own startups so this also helps create new entrepreneurs and their own right to create bigger biz other businesses to help right but in in that sense this is also why but we also believe in regulations so we've actually created a collaboration between the big digital players to create a digital roadmap to kind of work together the government to create meaningful laws and regulations in this space because we're constantly educating the government to say hey you know with digital platforms there's a lot of potential so the potential is that you create millions of jobs for and for new entrepreneurs right and then I think also in terms of education it also needs to go ahead and hand of teaching the government what the business does and understanding what the business does and and with that they can also help to regulate better so if you don't understand the business model which which is which happens a lot of the time they're like you know why wouldn't I treat you like a taxi right so taxis run 24/7 right so you know we can only limit to this number of people because that's what we have in the market but they don't they don't understand the right sharing economy for example the potential for that so it's also helping the government understand how the businesses work and then with that you can find proper regulation in place to put in source so I think in terms of that it it will be really helpful to work together with the government and only from your perspective how do you view the role of big tech in the development and digitization of the ASEAN region so if you notice the two comments from Sri and from actually happen big cat is useful but again if you look at the law of the data how do we spill of the benefits that a bit have gathered so this is amazing all right I didn't even know that you know on this platform I can announce a few things so other than the trusted data sharing framework the government because this is the smart nation innovations week last week has also announced the formation of the government digital office which has three government agencies coming together one is the EDP which is the economic development part the other one is the enterprise Singapore which helps many of our small medium enterprises and the last one is the IMD a which is the part of the ITA that merges with media Development Authority and work with an ecosystem of companies to help them think digital move digital and implement digital frameworks and pathways so the three agencies have to come together because in Southeast Asia right now the number of unique ons that's coming up and I'm not a big fan of just unicorns I believe in 100 million dollar type companies than just one single unicorn but the number of unicorns coming up from Southeast Asia a few of them are concentrated from countries like Indonesia we have only one in Singapore - all right Counting graph and ming-liang Fraser you know so do we want only big tech No so how do we get big tech to collaborate with the smaller companies and so this role of this new office is to do a lot of this matchmaking so I think social benefits do not flow to the citizen on its own so you need some kind of intervention but not regulation so I think the idea here is a government can be more than just a regulator a government can be the enhancer can be the platform can help match companies together so that a thousand flowers a thousand companies and big tech should not be a barrier to innovation because destiny of ASEAN is to create more entrepreneurs and cross-border ones and not just within one country JJ I want to pick up this point with you because there is a sense from the rest of panelists that big tech can play a role yes but there needs to be some essence of caution from the businesses you work with what's their kind of take on this are they worried about the kind of areas that big tech are pushing into right now the potential slices of the pie they could be taking right now is that are they concerned about the growth of these companies maybe maybe I would like to widen this a little bit for like when we say big take like often in the back of our mind we think of certain specific players we think of certain specific companies or certain names but today as as digital is practically infused in every part of our life every company's our tech company like every bank is a tech company every insurer is a tech company every automotive maker manufacturer is a tech company so so in my view everybody is embracing technology in such a manner that you cannot really differentiate yes they are using certain big tech companies in certain ways sometimes we might criticize sometimes we might appreciate but what we have to accept is there is no running away from technology there is this is a given this is this is something where there is no running away that we have to be technology company each company in order to survive should embrace technology today or tomorrow and as we do that either we have to build that technology backbone ourselves as in-house within the company like somebody might build their own cloud somebody might build up their own space own data center on everything or somebody will piggyback on something which is already there already made and build upon it but there is no shying away that ultimately in order to make technology viable there has to be an immense competition on price there has to be an immense competition on accessibility affordability of course and privacy so security so if this can be ensured then no company is bad it's up to how we use them great and I'm just building on this point of of big tech of course this this what Economic Forum meeting is convening against the backdrop of the ongoing dispute between China and the US over trade and one of the conversations we've been having on CNBC with many of our guests is around the idea that there could be the development of a two-speed internet a dual internet or a splinter net as some are calling it where you get dual standards you get your pieces of regulation and essentially an internet which is half dominated by China and Chinese tech companies in half by US and US tech companies JJ I'm going to kick this question off with you and this is one for all of you is what's the probability of this scenario happening and if it does happen what are what are the impact when it comes to the digitization of ASEAN countries I think that isn't there a dual speed in all our lives like even today like I was reading our statistics which says that there are more COBOL transactions that are run on mainframe today than the number of Google searches so aren't we existing with the old world and the new world so so similarly in our world also with 7 billion people with so many countries and with so many different standards there may be multiple standards but we can we cannot ignore the influence and the powerhouse and the technological advancement that we are seeing in China that we have seen some of the Chinese homegrown companies achieving and how they have become more international we all talk about the usual suspects like we all talk about Baidu Alibaba $0.10 who are we but even if I look at companies like cents time that specializes in artificial intelligence and algorithms like the power that they have been able to generate nationally and internationally is immense the talent that they are able to harness the amount of asset that they are able to create so I would say that since we all every business is in the search of asset and in the search of intelligence and know-how and knowledge no harm in tapping into each other's knowledge no harm in to tapping into because at least let knowledge be seamless and even if you put restrictions on data and restrictions on movement but at least let knowledge be seamless such that we can benefit and we can build it and and we can build upon that knowledge so that's my view in terms of the influence of China but yes in day to day lives when we are doing business when we are seeing our customers making their business decisions when we are helping our customers transform their business we are pretty open to all the technological innovation because transformation is very tightly linked to innovation and innovation is linked to reimagine ation because if we can't imagine what was already happening in a new way we can never remarry imagine and simplify and everybody holds a key to that so whoever has a master key to that we should use that so really what's your what's your take on everything you mentioned but I mean I don't know how far these straight tension is going to drag on and I only can hope for the best but if eventually there were to be a dual system before the internet usage I'm pretty sure that the the guy who will make the most money will be the one who would create an interface that people can switch from one to another any I think is ridiculous because Internet is supposed to be in the whole wide web so the world is supposed to be more connected so you know switching between two different systems doesn't work I think in the past all right we can have the right hand kannan left hand car traffic we can have different ways of pronouncing data data or data you know you could have different systems for measurement and that's because you go into a country and you adopt that system but with the internet and with the knowledge and accessibility of information it's it's really like you said sorry it's everybody's well so why are we putting up walls when it's actually going to benefit everyone actually I mean I think I agree all the panelists here right I mean having two systems you know maybe maybe the only advantage would be it'd be easy faster to find something perhaps but at the end of the day both sides will still find a way to connect and and it's to an end user it doesn't make a difference at all so I think it's ridiculous as well and I just want to pick up with you on a point JJ made in his answer there and that was the role of China you know what we've seen is China's technology companies beginning to grow and expand beyond China via investments or via launching you know other products for other markets what role do you see China playing in the digitalization of RCN and is it a role you would welcome I think I think China so okay so the digitalization is is something that I think every country needs to take on for themselves and then work us together as a group as an awesome block for example I think where China can come in is really China has has kind of leapfrogged a lot of the developments that we've that we've seen in other countries that now that happen in China because they will close economy so they will leak to the catch-up game in the text in tech space right so as a result I think so it's yep so because as a result that they can share how to do that I think with emerging economies right so that they can benefit from from from that leap and it kind of shed in all the trend upfront but other than that I think that as a totality or everyone should work together and then your take on on the road China could play here in the digitization of a Faustian tree I joined you go in China right yes CNBC and you're based in quantum in Guangzhou yeah are you in clung to it's a part of the greater Bay Area strategy we're tapping into all other technology that's going in downside in China so I do see China doing a lot in many ways in the tech transfer perspective I think we cannot deny that they have lived from in the for ir has given that opportunity and you don't have to be part of the first second that I are to achieve what you're achieving today but I also recognized and I think China does recognize it as well that there are a lot more homogeneous within China so you may have size and but you have only one kind of data within China so the homogeneity the similarity in language culture system makes it very easy for China's unicorns to group ik when it comes to ASEAN the magic of ASEAN is it's so diverse it's ten different countries I could sit here and speak with Serena because she's using English but I don't speak her language when I'm in peepee in Miyama I have wonderful friends in the audience from Yama and we are all at different stages of growth and so what we need from China is an appreciation of the diversity in our culture in the differences in our economic growth and it would have been wonderful if China could help us with the tech transfer but not just based on China's blueprint but based on the individual cultural and steps and different stages of growth within ASEAN so the beautiful thing about ASEAN is also its challenge to have inclusion in diversity and to have that partnership with China and India I'm also looking towards India and the rest of Asia I think we are at the pivotal moment right now to make a difference and if all countries could come together to help build a digital ASEAN I think this will be a wonderful used case for g2g collaboration and sorry your take on Annie has put it so beautifully go then let me let me just ask you this as we close out our discussion and I finished the bit where I stopped asking questions and hand it over to our much more intelligent audience what are some of the actionable recommendations that you would say on the back of this discussion today whether it be around some of the policy initiatives we've been talking around around data or or anything you think from a policy perspective might help with the digitization of ICN so come back JJ yeah so so I think that the primary takeaway for us in ASEAN is we have to accept that ASEAN is a very diverse mass of countries and and there is so much of diversity in all forms like economic development adoption to IT the the buying power and everything so so probably we will never have the same shirt size fitting all but we should definitely have a certain degree of a common code which will guide the digital adoption of ASEAN and then make the individual bolt-ons for individual countries to build upon that based on their socio-economic needs and geopolitical needs but one thing is for sure that in order to get digital to be successful whether we call it digital to dot o or X dot o we have to be migrating from doing digital to being digital till the time we reach that state this journey is not complex because all of us in each countries in each businesses in various ways in our small steps we were all trying to look at doing digital we were trying to do certain things which were adopting digital but we have to be digital and that's what I see as a transition which ASEAN is going through and that ASEAN not least country individually but as a group has to go through with its companies because these policies are not implemented often at a government level like the building blocks happen at a company level the Smart City project is not employee by the government of Singapore alone but it needs gothic and goth tech needs a series of other companies so so as it flows down this vision has to get into a lot more of being digital infused in the system in fusion the business and that has to be common across like this is where it's a no-brainer in my in my view sorry yeah first of all I think on the domestic level we need a strong and strong rules on data privacy's and flow on the regional level I think we need to overcome individual country national interest for it to happen we also I mean there's so many ways that as an can connect with each other and leapfrog the the some of the infrastructures and I just remember when we were talking about connecting ASEAN in terms of our payment system we were talking about a centralized system where every country national share switch will connect to that system I think now we can just leave frog to blockchain there are so many opportunities there so there were technology is there for us to connect to each other it's available but the regulating of the technology is something that we need to look in collectively among ASEAN member country any what's your take very quick one I think I started saying that there must be a purpose of data privacy of data partnerships I think and the people centric approach I call it in the fourth key and I think today's conversation actually convinced me even more on this panel that it should not be just the government talking to governments but governments businesses and a private sector and a people sector coming down together so some of the things that conversation should center around would be mobility because you know University students graduate from different universities and it would love the idea that it could also be heard about where they want to work and how did he bring them new to the different ASEAN countries so I'm the voice for the young I'm the voice for the future generations of ASEAN inhabitants and I think for them they do want to see that conversation going and doing digital acting digital implementing digital and just angeline I'll give you the final word on this one so I think in terms of in terms of digitalization I found that we like what really works very well is if you put together industry players together on the ground you put them together they can come up with meaningful discussions and thoughts processes and around what can work and will help develop everything together and then all of this would be in coordination with the government's who to kind of keep them in the loop and educate them in the process and and I say this because we've recently worked very closely together with non-government organization in the Philippines called gonna go show so there are neutral third party that has brought together players from the public sector from the private sector from different stakeholders in order to have that discussion in a very meaningful manner and you know a lot of times if you leave it just to the private sector you know it will just be oh okay all of this we want all of these things and then you go to the government and governments like are you smoking crack like this is you know but this is not this does not make any sense I can't fit this into the framework or the way I think about things and if you leave it up to the government it will be I'll come back as a thick booklet with without any practical purposes so I think what what is what very well for us has to be to be to working together as one organization to kind of move faster through this the times because digitalization happens so quickly something that you put in place a month ago may not make sense a month down the road so you also have to iterate much faster and with that I think if we can have these organizations in each of the ASEAN countries then we'll be able to understand the challenges that they face or if you're more advanced in this stage you can teach these other players as so you know these are the kinds of things you went through and this is why we think we went and you know you just want to share it with you and kind of share best practices and I think this is a rule that government can come in to lubricate that process or to make that introductions to ensure that these discussions takes place and and I think that's gonna really help help us move down the road of digitalization that's great and on that point I just want to open up the floor to the audience if you want to ask any questions to our panelists here please oh just raise your hand start here this gentleman just sit yep we got a mic we got a mic hi my name is Jeffrey so one of the things I do is I'm a social entrepreneur and we use data to do credit scores for five markets in the region so we used to help uh data we use AI and provide credit scores for people I'm Bank and when five markets in Southeast Asia and South Asia we just call about a billion people by end of this year and I want to kind of maybe challenge or kind of put this out as a question to snow the speakers we talked about this trend of data flow across border and the willingness of governments to back it because what we are seeing in our deployment is that all detail cause all the regulator's all the banks are asking us to start deploying on-premise which wasn't a case three to four years ago so you know I feel on the ground what we're seeing is a reversal of the trend of data flow but what you're talking about is how you envision potentially more data sharing in ASEAN and I don't know in 10 years time whether you you think it's actually realistic that we're gonna have more data flow rather than less across borders it is to everyone I guess to everyone especially to the regulators or to the people in policy sorry you want to kick off yeah data localization is a big questions and and now we talk about cloud computing and how it can add efficiencies to for financial institution for instance what is challenging for us as regulators is first of all I mean at least in Cambodia we don't have any specific rules on that so as erect we tend to be sort of like close one eye open one eye but given the reason what I mean tensions that we observe there are only so few cloud service companies out there a fuse two or three are American and you have hallway as well and and what you don't know is you know when when things like this straight tangent happen technology is the third things that will be attacked right and for you as a third party country who are going to use you you try to see you know where do you fit in all these problems you geopolitics issues so it is not an easy things for regulators to to overcome and so there's a lot of discussions among regulators around the world about that and I don't think nobody has come out with of the right sort of rules India has just come up with a regulation I think Singapore was well on you can hold certain information on cloud but certain others it has to be in local so I mean this from a dataflow perspective it's a form of restriction so how do we overcome that I don't know so Geoffrey can I ask the five countries that you're in which are they right so there are the countries that have a law unban right and you actually approach the different individual serenity in those countries right and your data is actually to help the young bang get access to credit am i right so you have the right purpose the right intentions but why do you need to go to the banks what do you need to go to the telcos so again the non-traditional players might be the ones that you should be approaching now the good news for you is Singapore again announced two days ago it's going to issue five digital banking licenses and it's also to make available all right it to the unbanked but in Singapore most of us say there's no unbanked but maybe you could play the role of having a Singapore digital license and then make credit available to Southeast Asia so you know it's like why do you need to go to the usual suspects because today's digital well your best play can be someone who is not in the legacy system and could see that same partnership value and I like the statement angeline make earlier she said that show your value I like that very much because not ever he doesn't mean that your government means you know everything so most governments are actually very appreciative when you can show them data that they probably didn't know but it must be evidence-based it must be done with good research it must be something that you've actually found out and worked on it and has a deep understanding so don't show crap so you know it's so you have to do your homework and when you read that hat I think a lot of governments are actually aligned to the same purpose we want to make available access to capital and if it can help the unbanked it's a good purpose and we should be all aligned and I also want to add from a regular regular regulator perspective is that we are again I agree with you that in the government will lag behind a private sector and when we don't understand we tend to be very protective of our of that and and then we also speculate on the risk and vote for instance the central bank our job is to be conservative if I mean if not to say pessimistic but our job is to be conservative and so if we don't understand something if you don't come and talk to us we'll say no when we don't want to touch that so you have to explain having said that Annie I'm I'm glad that you mentioned about the digital banking because Cambodia's credit bureau is trying to have an MoU with the Singapore credit bureau for a very long time we have agreed and I hope that it's going to happen soon JJ Angeline do you have a comment on the question take some more questions anywhere else a question sure thank you for the panel for interesting conversation and when the Penner is talking about data flow and better regulation the world trusts really pop up and especially like that trusted data sharing framework also the data flow with trust so I'm wondering since Trust could not come out of nothing so what are the essential element underpinning to trust regulation or partnership or something else so I'm wondering what's in your mind JJ I think that the fundamental building block of trust is predictability and and if a behavior is predictable like like how many of you would trust a robotic judge a judge as a robot yeah but it has happened China has got ecoute where you have a robotic judge and there is a Supreme Court ruling in China that if it is supported by certain blockchain technologies then it is accepted so so what it means is that how how it is getting improved over a period of time is when AI becomes lot more trustworthy because we have to we have to keep in mind that behind everything there is an algorithm and an algorithm is still written by a human being and so which means that we cannot shy away from what we call as algorithmic bias there will still be a certain amount of bias as we write algorithms as this bias is taken away as this bias becomes more neutralized as artificial intelligence becomes more predictable that will automatically give you trust so so that's why so certain things that we have never imagined in our lifetime can happen are happening and we are relying and and very soon we will rely on many others like driverless car or or a robot taking care like yesterday I was in that biometric mirror of and and it gave a lot of false things about me but starting from my age all the way down I was very happy to see if I aged but but it is true that there will be still certain mistakes which means it has lost his trust but but that's where I think that as it builds upon and as trust comes in the rest of it will follow I'll take another question from this side yeah lady in the front so we just mentioned that a blockchain could be used like for data protection so my question is so what do you see the prospects of you know having a personal or individual data trading in a market based on the blockchain I think maybe this is a trend but I don't know what's other prospects do you think about it we haven't agreed on the data flow rules and regulations let alone the trading of it actually so NTP Network trade platform was set up by GAF Tech and that sits with our customs office and the idea is every time when you do trading you have to put in lots of documentation trade documentation so that's not the same as individual trading all right that it's like individual information being traded so network trade platform is something that governments can do and we are doing that the single ASEAN window is something that's also facilitating that but I really like that young man's question about trust I don't think you can have any platform for trade or for any exchange of data if you don't have trust so for MGP for network trading platform we also have trick trust which is like a custodian of the information so trust can only come about when you trust the custodian who's holding the information so data governance has to be set up not from a supervisory a regulatory angle but a self body a body of players who you trust actually doing some self governance rules because you believe in it like a code of conduct so you know if you are in China we all believe that Yahoo you know there is this trust in in the mandate that you will do the right thing so how do we create that kind of trusted community which can then be custodian of trusted data so we are still many steps and we and that's why this is only the conversation to start blockchain as a technology can be used for a lot of different traceability use cases but he has a regional stage of the global network area for now right what I think we're gonna do you have any more okay we have a minute left I think maybe we just think well I'm just just gonna I'm gonna just wrap up actually so you have time for a quick one so I mean I think in terms of data and trust so yeah I just actually met someone who is doing using the blockchain to basically have companies talk to each other governments talk to each other the information without having to disclose the actual information so I think with technology maybe we'll also be able to trust to share your information more with other players as long as you don't expose your own data so as a private company for example I don't share my customer list to my competitors right but if there was a technology they could do so that benefits everybody else then then I think maybe that's something that more people is not considering at a whole page on blockchain here around to it and Facebook and Libre and everything else we're gonna have to save that for another day just a quick way to wrap up you know look the the improvement in the digitization of our CR and is easy but not impossible that's what we've heard from our panel it requires a government industry private companies all working together it requires new rules on data data privacy data flows and ultimately from whatever heard today it requires a lot of collaboration so fascinating face fascinating insight into all that thank you so much for your time thank you all for listening a round of applause for a wonderful panel [Applause]

Channel: World Economic Forum

Views: 6,096

Rating: 4.9069767 out of 5

Keywords: World Economic Forum, Davos, politics, finance, economy, news, leadership, democracy, education, 4IR, technology, tech, AI, automation, work, future, Dalian, China 2019, New Champions

Id: 1Mf8Q6931-c

Length: 59min 13sec (3553 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 03 2019